← Thursday 22nd December 2022 →

Examining experimental compositions past and present.

A nine-part retrospective of the first five seasons of the Radia network’s epochal (and on-going) radio art series. Assembled by Lee Stapleford.

Andy Backhouse presents a two hour show of new and unusual music and sounds - playing everything from Free Jazz to Field Recordings. This is an open-format show with a difference.

This episode: Tandem Tapes.

In The Abstract with Dennis De Caires draws on fringe sounds, lo-fi and bedroom techno to noise art and ambient sound works. Produced in collaboration with Australian community arts station 2ser.

On this second night, live performances from Silent Green by Limpe Fuchs and Alexandra Cárdenas; and by Das Kinn and Ya Tosiba at Panke Culture.

Full lineup:

• Limpe Fuchs

Percussionist, sound-sculpture builder and pioneer sonic explorer from rural Bavaria, Limpe Fuchs' ongoing legacy expands over 6 decades. She uses her large scale self-built instruments made of metal, wood, and stone, as well as the viola and the voice creating a tapestry of sound.

• Alexandra Cárdenas

Colombian composer Alexandra Cárdenas is best known for her performances with live coding, though she has composed contemporary pieces for a variety of musical formations (orchestra, ensembles, soloists). Her work researches the algorithmic behavior of music, and musicality within code.

• Das Kinn

Toben Piel (half of the Frankfurt-based avant-garde / techno-pop duo Les Trucs) stops for a visit with a new blend of Post Punk and crisp analog electronics.

• Ya Tosiba

Azerbaijani-born Zuzu Zakaria borrows from traditional music from the region, woven into cutting edge Scandinavian electronica and hip hop, using rhymes in her native Azeri tongue, in the tradition of Meykhana (‘winehouse’) word artists, which was prohibited during the soviet regime.

Resonance Extra presents two nights of the Underground Institute Festival, which was broadcast live from Silent Green, Berlin and Panke Culture on the 8th and 9th December 2022. Sonic exploration, custom built instruments, sound art and avant-garde pop music, featuring some of the most adventurous sonic artists active today.

Summer 2022’s monumental Radio Art Zone allowed me the opportunity to work with the best actor of his generation, Steffan Cennydd, who I’d seen on the tv a few times and who luckily was free for a day to record a whole bunch of pieces. These are presented in a sequence here, four in English and one in his native Welsh. The idea in each is not to attempt a traditional radio play nor to produce a classic dramatic monologue. Rather each of these pieces tries to create a psychological object. They are all deliberately elliptical, fragmentary, allusive, but share some underlying themes (obsessions perhaps) and, inevitably, language. Ultimately it’s the actor’s voice that makes them work - you’ll hear that, I think. - Ed Baxter

• The Deserter (27.43)

Commissioned by Radio Art Zone as part of Esch2022 European Capital of Culture.

• Butch Cassidy in Paris (Heart like a Duck, part 3) (27.20)

Commissioned by Hearsay International Audio Festival. Second voice: Willie Carr. Additional recording by Diarmuid McIntyre.

• Ar y Mynydd (On the Mountain) (19.51)

Text commissioned by Benedict Drew. Welsh translation: Ffion Emyr. Guitar loop sampled from a performance by Alasdair Roberts.

• Birdbrain (25.29)

Commissioned by Radio Art Zone as part of Esch2022 European Capital of Culture. Baby’s voice: Ivor Forsyth-Lanceley. Additional recording by Peter Lanceley.

• My Life as Doug Yule (25.39)

Commissioned by Radio Art Zone as part of Esch2022 European Capital of Culture. Additional recording by Trilby Baxter.

Thanks to all involved in these collaborations; to Knut, Sarah, Mathilde and Necef at RAZ; to Daniela Gargiulo; and, for their encouragement, Kersten Glandien, Anthony Moore, Milo Thesiger-Meacham and Jim Whelton.

Five Folk Tales for Radio (featuring Steffan Cennydd). Voice: Steffan Cennydd. Concept, text, sound design, montage by Ed Baxter. Recording engineer: Michael Umney.

Ahead of the release of their new album on First Terrace Records as MSC, brothers Zac & Isaac lay down a stunning special guest mix.

They say - "Throughout the years that we have written music, the bedrock of what we do and how we come to do it has been drone. The relative space inside a well done piece of drone is, to us, the opposite of "immense" or "spacey"; It is like a field in which many MANY things are beginning and repeating and changing and blossoming and going away.

Its refusal to perform what it seems like it is on its surface (and is often commodified as) is precisely what's interesting and generative about this form. Its passivity is at the same time real and a ruse- the "truth" of it is softly drifting between these lines of antagonism. Here are a few selects with that (and of course the soundsystem) in mind."

A selection of experimental frequencies, interviews and sessions plus cuts from the First Terrace label by Alex Ives (Specimens) and Joe Summers.

This episode features a mix by UNITEDSTATESOF.

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Guest mixes selected by Ian Bruner.

The parking garage is a the "inferno of the same" (the agony of eros). It is a labyrinth in which the ceiling is often the floor, a schizophrenic environment that does not allow the face to be recognized. The(se) structures or modern functional ruins are a global phenomenon and in most cases duplicate a common design. In this way the parking garage can act as a portal, an access point into multi-linear spaces (this way amd/or that). All parking garages comprise a kind of universal parking garage, when we are in one parking garage we are in all parking garages.
The global effects of the internet have displaced direction and have effectually erased all horizons. The rhizomatic connections of the internet, a(nother) decentralized and/or multicentered domain.

This episode features music made by Naviar’s community inspired by Yamaguchi Seison’s poem “Snow fallen onto, / The stars are shining, / The holy tree.”

Thirty minutes of experimental music made in response to a weekly haiku poem, curated by Marco Alessi of Naviar Records and Naviar's international community of composers.

In this episode, a mix by live acid techno producer and dark electro DJ, Vamp Acid, who works between LA and Berlin.

Twice-monthly broadcast showcasing electronic music produced by members of the female:pressure international network of female, transgender and non-binary artists practising in the fields of electronic music and digital arts.

An Easter special. Two hours of contemporary jazz and electronic music from Russia and an exclusive guest set by legend Vadim Petrenko.

Monthly experimen†al kleptomaniac post digital free jazz spam channel operated by artists Tilman Hornig and Paul Barsch aka DRONE OPERATØR.

This episode features a special guest selection by Laurie Anderson, plus tracks by Tegh & Adel Poursamadi, Al-Qasar, Ian Carr with Nucleus, and more. With Shane Woolman.

New music with The Wire Magazine.

Each episode is presented in two halves: the original field recordings from the first half of each episode (A-sides), and the second half of each episode (B-sides) is a sonic response by invited artists, curated by artist and musician Jack Prest.

These responses take the form of deconstructed, remixed or re-recorded versions of the original field recordings and explore ambient electronic, contemporary classical, noise and other musical/sound forms conceptually connected to the practice of field recording.

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS: If you would like to contribute a field recording from an art institution to This Is Not A Love Song (Sound Archive), contact Joe and Chanelle at chanelle@chanellecollier.com

The artists would like to thank and acknowledge support from all contributing artists and arts workers who have offered recordings and advice.

The series is made in collaboration with Jack Prest.

A Side Field Notes:
“This field recording of Kraftwerk in Berlin was made during the pack down of the sound and light festival, Atonal, with the help of Atonal Art Director (and our dear friend and former Sydney ARI gallerist) Adrianno Rosselli. These personal connections highlight the interweaving of disparate moments and places that the recordings often produce, that can instigate a dynamic reading of site and context. For instance, 1960’s power station in Berlin, meets international contemporary art festival, meets a closed Sydney ARI.

What is interesting about this site is that it is a former power station (like the Tate Modern and others). It is not made for art, but occupied by it. So it exists as something of an anomaly in the project, not being easily classified, that provides an opportunity to wonder: what is the art institution or museum, and from where does it draw its power?” - Chanelle Collier

B Side Notes:
On the recording process with a live ensemble: “a direct response in the studio wearing headphones with no previous listening” - Jack Prest

From The Archive (DEFINING THE MUSEUM):
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) definition of a Museum, which stood for 50 years but is under revision (at the time of writing September2019). It states that the Museum is “a non-profit institution” that “acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.” – (ICOM)

Danish curator Jette Sandahl, working with ICOM, has put forward a new definition in a 21st century language. The new definition was developed in a two-year process but has been met with criticism. Sandahl’s proposal defines Museums as “democratising, inclusive and polymorphic spaces for critical dialogue about the past and the future”.

It continues: “Addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.” They should be “participatory and transparent”, work “in active partnership with diverse communities”, “aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing”. (excerpt as reported in The Art News Paper, by Vincent Noce, 19th Aug, 2019, theartnewspaper.com)

This new language and definition highlights who is to have access and asks who has permission to engage with the Museum; it highlights a need to address diversity and inclusion, ultimately recognising the need to include the voices of its many beneficiaries (viewers not donors).

"As an update (August 2020), Jette Sandahl has resigned over definition disputes." - Joe Wilson

This Is Not A Love Song [Radio] builds on an existing field recording project by artists Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier titled This Is Not A Love Song (Sound Archive): 200 field recordings, 200 countries; a collection of the ambient sounds of major art institutions around the world, created through recordings from a global community of contributors. The project appropriates sound to critically study the ambience of institutional space.

Eclectic musical face-off between German electronic musician and producer Ulrich Schnauss and Nathaniel Cramp (Sonic Cathedral).

Andy Backhouse presents a two hour show of new and unusual music and sounds - playing everything from Free Jazz to Field Recordings. This is an open-format show with a difference.